Sri Lankan Exorcist Dies After Burying Himself Alive

A Sri Lankan man, identified by police as Maxi Castro, a local exorcist, died Thursday after a bizarre and botched ritual to drive out what he thought were evil spirits from a house outside the capital, police said.

The man sacrificed a cat and was then buried in a shallow grave after instructing onlookers to dig him out once he gave a signal of pushing a sword he was carrying through the ground, police said.

“Even after three hours, there was no sign of the sword coming up from the grave…That is when the onlookers decided to pull him out anyway, but he was unconscious,” said a local police official.

Castro was taken to hospital early Thursday morning but he had already died, the unnamed official said.